Learning the Alphabet: Abecedaria and the Early Schools in Greece

LEARNING THE ALPHABET is the first step in becoming literate, and the inscribed abecedarium is tangible physical evidence that learning the alphabet was of interest to someone. Surprisingly, we have very little evidence, with one possible exception, of the process of learning the alphabet for the first time in a Greek school, or of the early stages of the process. The one exception is Herodotus 6.27: the roof of a school-house (on Chios) collapses, killing 119 of the 120 children—cited as a warning of the coming evils to Greece in the Ionian revolt (i.e. early fifth century). The children are said to be “taught their letters” (grammata didaskomenoisi), as I translate the phrase, but it could also be simply “learning their lessons,” as the Loeb translator (A. D. Godley) has it.